His Birth… and Death

During the Christmas season, we are constantly reminded of Jesus birth.  And it was quite an amazing thing, to be sure.  We all know the story, of the spectacular events that took place, with angles and shepherds and wise men and Mary and Joseph and that little manger in that cave, where our Savior entered into the world He was going to die for… yes, it was spectacular.

But I think we need to remember this December, and every December for that matter, that His birth would mean nothing without His death.  His touching entrance into the world would give us nothing, and be no more than some interesting tale, if it wasn’t for the death in which He left it, and saved us all from Hell and God’s wrath.  And all in all, the real story that counts is the death and resurrection.

So while you sit and sing carols about the manger and the angles, remember that it was all for the cross and salvation.  It was the beginning of the rescue of the world.

It’s That Time of Year Again!

Yes it is.  For those of you who don’t know, around this time of year a group of people – myself included – take their Christmas breaks and spend them reading through the Bible.  Your initial thought there probably was “The entire Bible?!?!”  and yes, quite a few of us have (though this year a lot of people are swamped with school, and it looks like a group will be doing only the New Testament)

There are one or two points to this.  One, it puts the holiday focus where it needs to be.  On God.  I understand that quite a bit of family stuff goes on over Christmas break, and we don’t blame anyone who can’t join us… or who joins and doesn’t end up finishing.  Which brings us to point two: to dig into the Word and read more than we would normally have read.  Even if you read just a few chapters more than you would have otherwise and flop after that we don’t consider it a failure.  We think it great that you spent even that much more time in the word.

So if you are interested in joining in on all this, hop over to our blog: Christmas Bible Reading

Christmas

Lights are out, stores are hanging out their happy holiday signs and perhaps you yourself are starting to sing the carols of the season.  Then there is the cookies and of course eggnog and… wait a minute, back up a bit.  Happy Holidays?!  Hmm… This seemingly innocent two words are actually two sneaky little enemy agents!  Well, ok, maybe tools by the enemy would be a better way to say that, but you get the point.

You see, when people say Happy Holidays, or Holiday Tree (where did that come from?  I hadn’t heard that until this year) or Holiday lights, or Holiday stroll, or anything of that nature, they are spreading the propoganda of the world.  It’s not what’s there, it’s what isn’t there.  What every happened to Merry Christmas, or Christmas Tree, or Christmas anything?  Well, I’ll tell you what.  The world hates Christ.  Having him associated with one of the biggest holidays of the year, if not the biggest, makes them angry.  So slowly, but surely, they have taken their agents of the world and started to change that.

This is wrong!  Taking Christ out of Christmas is a way that the world is using to silence us christians.  We need to stop this, we need to avoid this.

How?  First, refuse to say Happy Holidays.  Make a point to say Merry Christmas.  To store clerks, on your Christmas cards, in regular conversations.  Everywhere.  Avoid Happy Holidays.

Another thing you could consider would be avoiding stores in your Christmas shopping that say Happy Holidays.  We need to support people who support us.  If we want to get our message out to the world, we need to be different.  When we avoid the stores that say Happy Holidays, we take away quite a chunk of money out of their pockets.  If enough people did that, we could have our Christmas back.

Shall we?

Victoria